First phase of T-hub likely to be ready by year-end: Minister

Hyderabad: The first phase of T-hub, country's biggest technology incubation centre, spread over 80,000 square feet at the IIIT campus here is expected to be ready by this year-end or early next year, Telangana Information Technology Minister K Taraka Rama Rao said on Wednesday.

"We will be starting the incubation facility from IIIT campus which will be spread over 80,000 square feet where 400 plus start-ups will be working from. It is shaping up very well. The first phase will be launched at the end of this year or early next year probably (January or February)," the minister told reporters here.

"We are forging ahead. We are in the process finalizing architect and structure, speaking to numerous entrepreneurs to bring them on board of governing council," he said adding the next phase would be much more bigger one with built-up space of 300,000 sq ft.

"It will be a standalone facility which will have lot of different entities working from it. The NASSCOM ‘10,000 start-ups’ will also start functioning from there. We are trying to build an incubator of incubators. There are lot of incubators in various academic institutions across the country and city as well. We want to bring them all under one roof so that they can enjoy facilities like networking with each other and get support from government and other private equity players and VCs," Rama Rao said.

The Telangana government is taking up the country’s biggest technology incubator with collaborative efforts from the Indian School of Business (ISB), the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Hyderabad) and NALSAR University of Law besides various other organisations, the minister added.